Pozières Memorial
| Pozières Memorial | |
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| Commonwealth War Graves Commission | |
View looking north across the cemetery, with colonnades of memorial panels in the background
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| For forces of the United Kingdom and South Africa | |
| Unveiled | 4 August 1930 |
| Location | Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. |
| Designed by | William Harrison Cowlishaw Laurence A. Turner (sculptor) |
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In memory of the officers and men of the Fifth and Fourth Armies who fought on the Somme battlefields 21 March – 7 August 1918 and to those of their dead who have no known grave
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| Statistics source: Cemetery Details. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. | |
The Pozières Memorial is a World War I memorial, located near the commune of Pozières, in the Somme department of France. It was unveiled in August 1930. The memorial forms the perimeter walls of a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery. It lists the names of 14,657 British and South African soldiers of the Fifth and Fourth Armies with no known grave who were killed between 21 March 1918 and 7 August 1918, during the German advance known as the Spring Offensive (21 March–18 July), and the period of allied consolidation that followed. The final date is determined by the start of the period known as the Advance to Victory on 8 August.[1]
Contents
Memorial
The memorial commemorates the missing of the British Fifth Army, and to a lesser extent of the Fourth Army (re-formed to turn the tide of battle following the virtual disintegration of the Fifth Army). The original intention was that the memorial at Pozières should commemorate the missing of the Third Army, while those of the Fifth Army would be commemorated at Saint-Quentin, at the heart of the Army's sector in March 1918. However, the French authorities objected to the amount of land being taken for British memorials, and so the names of the Third Army missing were added to the walls of a cemetery at Arras, while the Fifth Army memorial was situated here, despite the fact that Pozières lay on the wrong side of the River Somme from the area in which those named had died.[2]
Designed by William Harrison Cowlishaw, with sculpture by Laurence A. Turner, the memorial consists of a colonnade of wall panels forming three sides of the perimeter of a cemetery, and incorporating a Cross of Sacrifice. The fourth side of the cemetery, on the road frontage, is formed by an open arcade, with the entrance archway at its centre: the inscription is over this. The memorial was unveiled on 4 August 1930 by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, who had served as a general commanding the British II Corps and the British Second Army during the war.[1]
Cemetery
The memorial encloses a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, in which 2,758 Commonwealth servicemen are either buried or commemorated. Plot II (occupying less than one sixth of the site) is an original plot of 1916–18, containing 272 burials. The rest of the cemetery contains graves moved here from surrounding areas following the Armistice, the majority being those of soldiers killed during the latter stages of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. A few belong to men killed in August 1918 during the Advance to Victory. Approximately half the graves are those of unidentified bodies: of those identified, the majority belong to Australian soldiers. 57 Germans were buried here in 1918, but most of their remains were moved after the war, leaving just a single German grave.[1][3]
Notable commemorations
Brigade commander
The most senior officer commemorated on the Memorial is Brigadier-General G.N.B. Forster of the 14th (Light) Division, killed on 4 April 1918 when his brigade was in action near Villers-Bretonneux.[4]
Victoria Crosses
One Victoria Cross recipient is buried in the cemetery: he is Sergeant Claud Castleton of the Australian Machine Gun Corps, killed on 29 July 1916.[3]
Three Victoria Cross recipients are commemorated on the Memorial,[5] under their respective regiments:
- Private Herbert Columbine (killed on 22 March 1918)
- Second Lieutenant Edmund De Wind (killed on 21 March 1918)
- Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfrith Elstob (killed on 21 March 1918)
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Middlebrook and Middlebrook 1991, pp. 130–31.
- ↑ Middlebrook and Middlebrook 1991, pp. 132, 293–4.
- ↑ [1] List of Victoria Cross Holders on the Pozières Memorial, France.
